


No Man's Land

by DandyLiger



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Starscourge!Sora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DandyLiger/pseuds/DandyLiger
Summary: There were so many questions in front of him, Noct didn't bother to ask them. He snapped a dagger into his hand and warped over to the other side of the fence. Sora still sat curled in on himself.Kneeling down in front of his huddled friend, he said, gentle but commanding: "Sora. Look at me."





	No Man's Land

**Author's Note:**

> Playing around in destiny-islanders' FFXV/Kingdom Hearts Crossover AU, I got an idea and I made myself sad with it, so of course I had to be self-indulgent and share it. There's art to go with it here, for what it's worth: https://dandyligerarts.tumblr.com/post/181813889361/

"So," Noct said as he set down his glass and leaned back in his seat, "I take it Sora made it home okay? He's not here."

There was a pause with nothing but the humming of the lights and machines inside the diner. Prompto froze in the middle of fiddling with his boot lace.

"Oh," said Prompto casually, "Yeah, he's been--" He looked up at Noct, and the words died when their eyes met. He sighed and said, "Welp, botched that."

"You gave up awfully quick," said Gladio dryly.

"He caught me off guard," Prompto shot back halfheartedly, "He didn't ask first thing, I thought maybe he wasn't going to."

"Probably for the best," Ignis muttered.

"Why?" Noct asked, alarmed now and confused that the others didn't seem to be. "What's happened to him?"

No one answered, but Prompto reached over and tapped Noct's hand as he passed him. "Come on, out here."

Prompto led him towards a stretch of the fence surrounding the base not directly under any of the streetlamps. Ignis and Gladio followed behind.

"He asked us to cover for him," Prompto said quietly as they walked, "but..." He gave a helpless gesture.

"So he  _is_ here," said Noct, "and he's been here all this time?"

"Yeah," Prompto said. "By the time he thought to try getting some help from--" he pointed vaguely upward "--outside, all his ways out were closed off. No doors there to unlock, buried under all the darkness he said."

As they got closer, Noct saw a dark shape huddled against the fence--against the _outside_  of the inner fence, he realized, in the empty space between.

By the time he could make out the spiky hair, he was close enough to not have to raise his voice to say "Sora?"

Sora's head snapped up, facing away from him, then immediately burrowed under his arms and behind his knees that were curled to his chest.

Noct jerked to a stop. That wasn't like Sora. None of this was like Sora. He didn't hide from people, he didn't mope when things went dark, like--well, like Noct did.

Prompto knelt down to touch Sora's back through the links of the fence. "Sorry, bud. I couldn't lie to him to his face like that once he asked. He deserves to know, I think even you know that."

There were so many questions in front of him, Noct didn't bother to ask them. He snapped a dagger into his hand and warped over to the other side of the fence. Sora still sat curled in on himself.

Kneeling down in front of his huddled friend, he said, gentle but commanding: "Sora. Look at me."

Sora hesitated for a moment, but then Noct heard him sigh, and he obeyed.

Noct couldn't help but gasp and stare. Black veins scrawled up the left side of Sora's face, thickening as they ran down his neck--what Noct could see of it that wasn't covered by the layers he was wearing. His hands were gloved. His left eye was a yellow ring on black, but both eyes were dry. He looked so tired, almost too tired to be sad, like he'd cried himself out so many times that anything he felt now was left dry. For a split second Noct thought he saw him try to smile, but it didn't last.

Neither of them said anything. Noct was just taking in Sora's face, and he realized Sora was doing the same. In the background of his vision, Noct could see the other three standing silently, watching, shielding him and Sora from others' sight as well as they could. Noct could just begin to imagine how Sora must have been treated over this, if he was hiding himself away in between fences--trapped between needing to protect and needing to be protected. Between human and...

Sora started to turn away, lowering his head again. Noct reached out and cupped his hand around the scourged side of Sora's face to lift it up. Sora flinched, his eyes snapping wide open but not meeting Noct's. But then he leaned into the touch. A few silent tears started to fall as he closed his eyes, Noct felt them run over his thumb. The slick, hard-but-pliant feel of the scourge veins next to the healthy skin that was left was close to nauseating, but even so--

"You didn't have to hide this from me, Sora," Noct murmured. "I'm not afraid of you."

"I know," Sora whispered, "I just...couldn't make up my mind. I wanted to see you when you finally came back, but I didn't..." He took a deep breath. "I didn't want you to have to...remember me like this. And then, the only reason I'm here at all is because it's..."

Noct waited, but Sora seemed like he couldn't finish the thought.

"It seems like I'm always just where the dark wants me to be," Sora finally muttered. "It just...keeps happening."

"Well, _I_  want you with me," said Noct, solemn. "And I'm here to chase the darkness out." Neither of them had very long, Noct thought with a twinge in his chest, but he wouldn't give up the flicker of time they all had left to share, not for any sickness, or darkness, or what anyone else might think. "Come on, Sora. Let's go home."

Sora pulled away from Noct's hand and covered his face with his own. He took in and held a shaky breath, like he was trying not to cry out loud.

"Sora?"

"I can't go with you," he choked out. "I want to, but it's... Noct, I--I caught the scourge almost a year ago."

Noct felt like he'd been knocked flat on his back with no air to breathe. He practically heard Sora's next words before he said them, knowing it was the only possibility.

"I only lasted this long because...Ardyn kept tracking me down and healing me." Sora still hid behind his hand as he spoke. "Just enough so I'd last till you came back. And I let him."

He'd flinched when Noct touched him. He'd flinched, but he couldn't bear to pull away.

"And now we're here," Sora said. "Just like he wanted. And I know... if I go with you to face him he'll use me against you, and I can't..." Sora lowered his hand to look Noct in the eye, tears flowing freely. "Whatever the end is for me, I can't let that hurt anyone else." The conviction shone in his eyes for just a second before he let his head fall to his knees again, exhausted.

It wasn't just fear that made Sora hide. Noct thought back to the clothes scattered around the ruins at Galdin, the daemon-infested roads he'd seen on the way here. People who had been lost while Sora was singled out. No wonder he was hiding. He couldn't even choose for himself whether to let the disease take him. He'd been forced to not just suffer over his own pain, but to force his friends to suffer watching him.

Noct rocked back on his heels and closed his eyes. He'd never heard Sora talk like this before, so ground down by fear and sorrow, but he knew this was the kind of person Sora really was. Even if Sora hadn't told him everything about his other adventures, even if Noct hadn't listened to everything. This kind of visceral, brutal death he was facing was strange to Sora; Noct remembered how he'd been shocked, almost sick when they fought Ravus. But he was facing the darkness the same way he'd always faced it before. From the day Noct first met him, he realized, under all that naive perkiness, Sora was the kind of person Noct had needed to become. He would give everything if someone he loved needed it. Fair or not didn't matter, if it was the right thing to do. Noct knew he would have reached this place in himself even if Sora hadn't joined them, but having him along for the journey was a treasure all the same.

And he was not about to lose one of his people, his brothers, now. All this hurt had gone on for too long. Whatever burden was on Noct's shoulders, however much his own heart ached when he thought of it, that was where it belonged. Not on anyone else. Not on Sora.

Noct didn't touch Sora's face again, but he leaned in, navigating past Sora's still-ridiculous hair spikes, and pressed Sora's forehead to his.

"This is not the end for you, Sora, I promise you. You may be right about staying behind. That's your choice. But you will see the dawn, if I have anything to do with it." He couldn't hold back a bitter smile. "And I have everything to do with it."

Sora sighed deeply, trembling, but it sounded like the weight he'd carried had finally fallen away when he said, "Okay. I believe you, Noct."


End file.
